Most people approach this argument from a pre-conceived stance of "players should get paid" vs. "players shouldn't get paid".  Understandable, because what can not be changed in all of this is the fact we are human.  And humans are pretty simple.  We can be summed up in two sentences.

"If there is a pile of something over there that someone else is getting, I want some of that pile.  And if it's good, I'm going to figure out how to get more of that pile than anyone else."

Instead of dreaming up all kinds of rules and programs which tries to keep a persons particualr interest in tact, go back to the roots.

Colleges were created to educate people. The majority of students do not go to college to get paid while they are there.  They go on the expecatation that by doing so, they will improve their ability to get paid later.  And yet, we look at a specific minority (yes sports fans, college atheletes are a minority segment on a college campus) and say something has to be done!!!

It's simple, the one thing student athelets do that other students do not, is risk a skill set which will potentially help them get paid later in life on behalf of their school.  That is their bodies.  So here's the proposal, as part of a scholarship (across all sports), schools are required to provide an insurance policy for each scholarship athelete.  The amount of the insurance policy can be on a scale dictated by post graduation market factors (i.e. a football player would get a larger insurance policy than say a water polo player due to higher potential for earning income in the NFL vs whatever professional water polo leauge may be out there).  Player gets hurt while at school and can't earn a living in their field, player gets paid the insurance policy.  Player makes it through 4 - 5 years without career threatening injury, no payout. 

Keep it simple, keep it true to the intent. 

I don't know what happens with baseball/hockey players once they are drafted, aside from the pro team keeping the rights to the player. Do they get a stipend from their team?

But I do think that it does make the college game a noticeable step down from pro games, since the best players are in the pros as soon as they're capable. Compare that to college basketball/football and the skill-level doesn't seem to drop off as much.

I think a position that give some power to the players is best for them. You get a guarenteed 4 or 5 years unless you are ruled ineligible, and are free to leave after any season. I don't know what to do directly about the problem of agents, but maybe this would decrease their demand.

The problem with agents (and anything giving money directly to athletes), is that they can make deals with specific schools (underground if necessary), and pass along the money to the athletes, giving the schools a recruiting advantage. If you cap the amount of money a student can get, they will just get the rest illegally, as they are now.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't baseball players allowed to have relationships with agents while they negotiate after each draft they're eligible for?  Meaning after high school and generally after their junior years?  While they probably aren't allowed to front players any money, as your proposal allows, this process with baseball players does allow agents to form a legitimate relationship, which is often all "rogue" agents are looking for.

I really don't understand why college baseball and hockey are treated differently with respect to drafting, agents, etc.  What's the difference?  

Sorry, but i don't get this "players need to be paid" argument. They already ARE paid. My argument is based on (a) what the players actually get and (b) the fact that most kids coming out of HS would literally give their left testicals to be on full athletic scholarship in college even if they knew they had zero chance of going on and making it to the pros.

In exchange for playing college ball, players get a free college education (tuition, room & board, fees & expenses) from the best schools in the country. The average direct cost of such an education is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000 and is much higher at the best schools. They also get elite-level coaching, strength & conditioning, training table, medical care and academic assistance as well as tons of TV exposure so that the few who are actually talented enough have the best possible opportunity to make it into the pros at the end of the college careers. And, if that were not enough, they also get to be BMOC. Everyone wants to be their friend. They get all the hot chicks. They get untold "freebies". And they get lifetime membership in a fraternity - comprised of the school itself and other former players, alumni and fans - that is always there for them whenever they need a job or helping hand. Did Kirk Herbstreit and Jesse Palmer really end up making millions working for ESPN because of their amazing broadcasting talents or did they end up there largely because they played football at two of the top college programs in the country?

All of the above is an amazing package of benefits that every college athlete receives. If you need proof of its value, just consider the hundreds of thousands of HS kids who scratch and claw and beg to to be invited into this select group of special college students every year. And they do that fully knowing that the vast majority of them never will go on to play professional sports.

Yes, there are a relatively small number of athletes every year who are so gifted that they probably could jump directly to the pros without first going to college. Fine. Let them. But for the rest, including the vast majority of recruits who make up the the recruiting classes at all the elite football and basketball schools in the country every year, college is either essential to developing their talents and bodies and raising their games to the level that a pro team will be willing to take a chance on them or it is the last stop at which they can participate in athletics at the highest level in a sport that they love. IMO those athletes are extremely well compensated for their efforts.

The football and basketball players probably deserve a bigger cut of the revenue they are generating, but this would have to be done in a way that doesn't give any more of an edge to richer/stronger programs. As of now, an Indiana football player gets approximately the same legal compensation package as an LSU player. If you allow players to sign with agents, there will be a lot more agent money going to the big dogs, and the little dogs will fall further behind. The result would be less parity, and more boring games and seasons. I could see giving every scholarship player within a conference the same (small) cut of total revenue generated by all the teams in the conference in that sport, though.

Restricting coaches' pay would be illegal under case law, but would it be legal to put a cap on total spending on athletics that would apply to every team in a conference? This might also allow surplus football and basketball revenue to be used to beef up academics at some schools, which is something I have wanted to see for a long time. 

Couple of thoughts that will eventually lead to some kind of conclusion, I promise.

Thought 1: There is a problem with players not being paid at all. I am somewhat ignorant here, but is it true that players get NO walking around money, or is it that they don't think it's enough? If the latter, then boo hoo. I didn't have enough money in college either. If it's none, that's a problem, and my solution is that all college athletes should be paid a wage indexed to the cost of living in their town. So let's say A2 is the median college town (it probably isn't, but still): all scholarship athletes would get paid an hourly wage based on the number of hours the NCAA allows them to participate in sport-related activities. So, let's say it's 20 hours a week. They could get, say, $12 or $15/hour for the time they are in mandated sport-related activities. This seems fair to me, since playing a sport for your school pretty much makes it impossible to have another job.

Thought 2: The problem of players' not receiving a proportionate share of the value derived from their labor is only a problem for revenue-generating sports. This seems somewhat self-evident, but if there is no surplus to be expropriated, the players can't demand to get their fair share of the surplus. So, sorry men's gymnast. You will have to take the scholarship and go on about your business. You have no beef.

Thought 3: The problem of players on revenue generating sports not receiving a proportionate share of the value derived from their labor seems at first blush to be more of a problem for Denard Robinson and Mike Martin than for a walkon who will never see the field. I'm less sure of this one. On the one hand, part of me thinks that Denard puts asses in the seats; on the other hand, no matter who Michigan put on the field, there would be an audience. Michigan football creates its own demand, though the demand would surely be less if the players were all scrubs. Still, it is clear that even the 99th man on the roster of a revenue generating sport contributes to the revenue.

Thought 4: Paradoxically, however, the players least hurt by the expropriation of surplus value is in fact the players who create most of that value because they recoup their losses post-college. This one I'm even less sure of, because of course there are fantastic college players who probably generate a lot of revenue (at least collectively) but are unlikely to make that back in the pros. Think of the Pahokee kids--Smith, Odoms, and Hawthorne. They (at least collectively) contribute to generating surplus value, but they will probably never recoup that in the NFL. On the other hand, Mike Martin or Taylor Lewan probably will. So, the players who are the most exploited in college are the least exploited by age 30, and vice versa.

Hence, part of me thinks this whole paying players thing is much ado about nothing. The truth is that the vast majority of the D-1 athletes do not have any claim to the surplus generated by men's football and basketball. And, on some level, most of those players have no claim to it either, since people do not pay to see the 99th man in football or the 13th man in basketball. And, the players who generate the most surplus, while not getting it in college, get it in the pros.

So who are the children we're concerned about? I frankly wouldn't be against the idea of trying to value the contributions of different tiers of players, but that just seems way too difficult. The problem is that the market is good at placing value on the exploits of men's football and basketball players in the aggregate, but doesn't do a very good job of valuing individual players' contributions until they reach the pro leagues. In other words, being a Michigan football player is "worth" more than being a Southwest Missouri State football player, but how much is the starting quarterback on SWMS worth compared to, say, Michael Shaw?

Ironically, given the OSU foofaraw, one way to do this is to allow the players to sell their likenesses on the open market. So rather than splitting up the pie, allow the players to make their own pie. I think I might be able to get behind this.

But I can ABSOLUTELY see him in a top hat and monocle.

"Allow players to sign with agents, and get paid by them"

if your goal is to bring down NCAA college athletics, this is a good first step. Any solution that brings agents into the fold and makes them more involved with college campuses is a HUGE step in the wrong direction. Try again!

 

This makes the whole system akin to minor league football where the teams are only tangentally associated with the college/university.

No, thank you.

The only thing we need is to better inforce the rules and actually carry out some justice to the programs that are caught - like Ohio State. 

Fry'em - another institution will take its place and the machine will keep on rolling. That is the ONLY thing that needs to change.

All the women in that photo are ugly, they are not making a strong case.

anyone have the link to the atlantic article brian speaks of?

Here is another angle.  Used to be most top college basket players stayed at least 3 years.  Then players started going directly to the pros via HS.  Now we have this ridiculous rule that does not allow it.  So we have all of these one and done players.  It is only there so NBA teams and scout out the Kwame Brown bombs from the real players.  If the top 10-20 HS bball prospects go directly to the NBA it does not change the value of the product.  Ditto if the top 30-45 HS prospects went directly to the NBA.  We would still watch the college product.

If we still all watch the college product, that implies that the players who have professional talent do not add any additional value on a macro scale.  They are only valuable if they help that individual team win.  If the top 20 individuals are in a professional leauge and teams are fighting over the 21st best player who is suddenly now the best.  Were back at the same spot.

If we could transpose 1984 to 2012, the NCAA basketball contract is worth the same if Patrick Ewing, Jordan, and Barkely are playing for a school contract or not.   The same number of people will still watch NCAA basketball games. 

If a HS kid thinks he is worth millions, he should go to Europe if he believes the NCAA and the schools are unfairly making money at his expense.

 

In the early days of college football, many colleges would sign local  adults to a class or two so that they could play football. Generally they dropped out of school at the end of the season. Generally these guys were paid to play. Often these guys were former players. Some played for eight or nine years. The situation where a 19 year old student was up against a 27 year old steel worker was considered unfair. From that situation we ended up with the current prohibition on compensating students to play sports. 

Obviously times have changed. I believe that a student should be paid a percentage of the revenue that his or her university derives from his sport. This includes sponsership deals, franchise deals etc. From my persective it is simple fariness. 

What does the Michigan football program take in a year from all sources? $100 million or so? FIne, in addition to a full scholarship, take some percentage, say 7.5% and split it evenly across the 115 players on the team. It's not a lot of money by modern sports standards, but a responsible athlete who fails to make the pros could graduate with a pretty nice nest egg to start his life. Or if he were so inclined to pursue a graduate degree without requiring student loans. This percentage would be the same for all division 1 schools. 

For everyone who makes the argument about colleges and rich people making more and more money while the poor student athlete stays the same, I sure hope you are not working in or plan to work in the U.S. capitalistic economy. 

The company I work for makes tons of money. More and more every year to meet stock analysts expectations.  Do I get the chance to go ask them to open the accounting books so I can figure out what piece of the pie I should be getting?  I would really love to hear a sound argument for this entitlement attitiude other than, "it's not fair". 

You can't have a seating capacity of 109,901. You can't have the largest indoor practice facility. You can't have head coaches who make $2.5 million.  You can't have defensive coordinators who make $700K. You can't have weight rooms and locker rooms who attract the Denards, Howards, Woodsons. You can't have any of the things you love and cheer for without money.

So let's face reality, yes, there are some people who are going to get rich on the backs of those who do the work.  And those doing the work can ask for more all they want.  But just like I can leave my job because I think the grass is greener some place else.  I urge any student athlete who feels they are being taken advatange of to give up their scholarship and go make it in the real world.